August 1, 1995
An atheist farmer wrote the following letter to the editor of a local newspaper: “I plowed on Sunday, planted on Sunday, cultivated on Sunday, and hauled in my crops on Sunday, but I never went to church on Sunday. Yet I harvested more bushels per acre than anyone else, even those who are God fearing and never miss a service.”
The editor printed the man’s letter and then added this remark: “God doesn’t always settle His accounts in October.”
An atheist asserts that God does not exist yet sometimes talks more Him than do people who are convinced otherwise. Atheists are seldom found going to kindergarten, in foxholes or beside a dying loved one. Apparently, believing in no-God is not easy.
However, according to Scripture believing in God means far more than acknowledging He exists. James, half-brother of Jesus and writer of a New Testament book, said “So you believe in God? Even the demons believe, and tremble.”
The demons know God is there but their “belief” does not seem to do them much good. While the Bible says we do need to believe He exists, it adds we must also believe that “He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”
God’s rewards are not like those human beings give and receive. For one thing, they are eternal, not every October, yet He often gives a taste right now of what is to come.
For instance, faith in Christ results in peace with God. Sin separates everyone from Him but Jesus died for our sin so that separation could be removed. Believers often experience a wonderful inner peace from God as they live out their Christian lives.
Without faith, inner peace is fleeting at best. Writers H.G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw both rejected God and placed their trust in their own systems of belief based on human reason. They were brilliant men, yet neither found lasting peace of mind and heart.
Wells’ final literary work, has been called “a scream of despair.” Shortly before Shaw died in 1950, he wrote, “The science to which I pinned my faith is bankrupt . . . Its counsels, which should have established the millennium, have led directly to the suicide of Europe. I believed them once . . . In their name I helped to destroy the faith of millions . . . And now they look at me and witness the great tragedy of an atheist who has lost his faith.”
For seventy-five years, communist leaders tried that same notion in Russia. Now, after years of physical, social and spiritual decay, they admit they were foolish. Many of them have come to a personal faith in God through Jesus Christ.
It seems to me proving the grand notion of God untrue requires much more effort and faith than believing He is real. While circumstances in the world around us often make us wonder why Lord does not do something, even that question admits He is there.
As for rewards, this page is too small to list them, but if I did, their fullness would be difficult to describe. God reserves that for those who believe. Also, He never uses rewards to prove He is there. Instead, He reveals Himself to His people through the Person of Jesus Christ and the pages of His Word. He invites faith by being consistent with what He has revealed. He is a good, holy, powerful and changeless God.
He also rewards faith. He may not “settle His accounts in October,” but He promises His presence right now, all through an abundant life — a life that reaches into eternity, spent with Him. Then there will be no more sin and evil, sorrow or pain. Only fools would dare suggest bushels per acre is a worthy comparison.
Showing posts with label rewards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rewards. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
What about rewards? .................. Parables 412
March 15, 1994
Once an old, but crafty, man found his new neighbors had very noisy children. Instead of yelling at them to be quiet, he decided to promise them money for making noise. At first the children were excited about his offer and happy to oblige. They whooped and hollered and at the end of each day, were paid for it.
After a few days, the old man told them he couldn’t quite afford as much as he had been paying but would still give them money. They still made noise, but not quite so much. Gradually he lowered the amount each day. Finally they got disgusted and quit. When he asked why, they said, “We won’t make noise for nothing.”
The article accompanying this story made the point; promises of reward for desired behavior eventually destroys incentive. If someone is going to consistently do a certain thing, a reward may be the worst way to make it happen.
Christians are promised a reward. One has to ask if that promise destroys our incentive? Or do we “work” for a different reason?
Part of the answer is in something my mother used to tell me. She said that being kind or doing good is its own reward. That is, knowing that we have done right gives satisfaction. We don’t need anything else.
But why then does God promise a reward? Is it to encourage us to keep doing right? Some people think so. In fact, many have the idea that God sets up a list of rules and if they obey them, they will earn eternal life and go to heaven. This same concept of “do good – be rewarded” is carried over to Santa Claus and parent-child relationships: “be a good boy and you will get that bike you want.”
But God doesn’t work like that. He knows a little bit more about human capacity for goodness in relation to His standard. No matter how “good” people are, everyone falls short. Instead of putting the onus on humanity, He took the initiative to offer us a relationship with Himself on a different basis.
In the Bible, this relationship is described as a covenant, a unilateral agreement that God initiates. His covenants have specific regulations or stipulations for those involved. God says, “If you do this... you will be blessed (rewarded), and if you do not, you will be cursed (lose your reward).
The rules do not establish the covenants. They just outline how the people were to behave because of the relationship they have with God. Doing the right things would bring them blessing but it would not establish or keep them in relationship; they already had that.
It was as if God told the noisy children He loved them no matter what. That would never change. However, God asked them to behave as an expression of their love for Him. In behaving, they would enjoy freedom from the consequences of sin and that would be a reward. If they did not behave, they would lose that reward and their failure would also indicate they failed to love Him.
Christians have a covenant relationship with God. It is not earned by what we do. He says, “This is the covenant I will make... I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people... for I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
In response to His law written in our hearts, we live to please Him. That life has rewards; some here, some in heaven, but the reward is not heaven itself.
Actually, incentive is destroyed by promised rewards in one way. Those who mistakenly think they can earn eternal life as a reward sometimes give up and quit trying.
Once an old, but crafty, man found his new neighbors had very noisy children. Instead of yelling at them to be quiet, he decided to promise them money for making noise. At first the children were excited about his offer and happy to oblige. They whooped and hollered and at the end of each day, were paid for it.
After a few days, the old man told them he couldn’t quite afford as much as he had been paying but would still give them money. They still made noise, but not quite so much. Gradually he lowered the amount each day. Finally they got disgusted and quit. When he asked why, they said, “We won’t make noise for nothing.”
The article accompanying this story made the point; promises of reward for desired behavior eventually destroys incentive. If someone is going to consistently do a certain thing, a reward may be the worst way to make it happen.
Christians are promised a reward. One has to ask if that promise destroys our incentive? Or do we “work” for a different reason?
Part of the answer is in something my mother used to tell me. She said that being kind or doing good is its own reward. That is, knowing that we have done right gives satisfaction. We don’t need anything else.
But why then does God promise a reward? Is it to encourage us to keep doing right? Some people think so. In fact, many have the idea that God sets up a list of rules and if they obey them, they will earn eternal life and go to heaven. This same concept of “do good – be rewarded” is carried over to Santa Claus and parent-child relationships: “be a good boy and you will get that bike you want.”
But God doesn’t work like that. He knows a little bit more about human capacity for goodness in relation to His standard. No matter how “good” people are, everyone falls short. Instead of putting the onus on humanity, He took the initiative to offer us a relationship with Himself on a different basis.
In the Bible, this relationship is described as a covenant, a unilateral agreement that God initiates. His covenants have specific regulations or stipulations for those involved. God says, “If you do this... you will be blessed (rewarded), and if you do not, you will be cursed (lose your reward).
The rules do not establish the covenants. They just outline how the people were to behave because of the relationship they have with God. Doing the right things would bring them blessing but it would not establish or keep them in relationship; they already had that.
It was as if God told the noisy children He loved them no matter what. That would never change. However, God asked them to behave as an expression of their love for Him. In behaving, they would enjoy freedom from the consequences of sin and that would be a reward. If they did not behave, they would lose that reward and their failure would also indicate they failed to love Him.
Christians have a covenant relationship with God. It is not earned by what we do. He says, “This is the covenant I will make... I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people... for I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
In response to His law written in our hearts, we live to please Him. That life has rewards; some here, some in heaven, but the reward is not heaven itself.
Actually, incentive is destroyed by promised rewards in one way. Those who mistakenly think they can earn eternal life as a reward sometimes give up and quit trying.
Friday, October 23, 2015
Better that the hard drive crashes than my life ................ Parables 343
November 10, 1992
Computer people say it is not a matter of IF it happens but WHEN it happens. For me, it happened Saturday morning — my hard drive crashed. For those who do not know, the hard drive is the part that contains software programs necessary for using the computer, plus any information that has been saved or written on to its disk. A crash means it does not work; the information usually cannot be retrieved. It is gone forever.
My software is not a problem because we still have the original disks. As for my own data, I had a few hundred documents on that hard drive, including five or six manuscripts for Parables, this semester’s school work, letters, some artwork, and so on. Fortunately, most of it was also saved on portable disks called “floppies.” But, because my habits of backing up daily had lapsed, some things were lost, including at least two essays that must be researched and rewritten before their due dates later this month.
After taking the dead drive to a technician who replaced it with a new one, I spent several hours reloading my software programs.
As for the lost work, I felt something like a marathon runner might feel after 25 miles and the finish line in sight when someone’s dog runs out from the sidelines and bites him on the leg. Or maybe like the mother who brings a fresh load of sun-dried laundry in from the clothesline and one of her children spills a big can of tomato soup in it. A whole week of work — gone.
When I told my husband that I did not feel very enthusiastic about redoing the work, he responded with a simple question, “Why were you doing it in the first place?” His question was just what I needed to pull me out of my gloom.
For one thing, it reminded me I had set definite goals before starting Bible College. Prior to this, my educational ambition was only to achieve good grades and satisfy class requirements. Now, since I am aware that the Lord wants me to be more like Him, I decided it was important to do all the work but the goal would be greater spiritual maturity, not good marks.
Bob’s question also reminded me of a place in Scripture that talks about eternal rewards for the work we do in our Christian lives. It says some actions have potential for making an eternal impact; some have no lasting value. God will test them somehow by fire: “If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.”
God does not need a computer to know how we live, but if He somehow choose to record my whole life on a hard disk, then when the crash comes and my life is over, according to this passage, He does not simply toss the disk (as we will likely do with ours). Instead, He recovers what has been built on “the foundation which is Jesus Christ,” those actions done in faith and in the power of the Lord. He also rewards them in some undefined way. In other words, the good data is recoverable.
On the other hand, any of my life that was corrupted by selfishness and rebellion against Him will be burned; it is not fit for eternity. This includes not only the obvious uglies like hate, anger, lies, and so on but even so called “Christian service” that I did for my own glory and not for God. Because He knows everything about our hearts and motives, He justly evaluates what we do.
Looking back on the “loss” of some data now takes a different perspective. All that God has done during the past two years to change me is recorded on my heart and life where it should be — certainly (and thankfully) not on my hard drive!
Computer people say it is not a matter of IF it happens but WHEN it happens. For me, it happened Saturday morning — my hard drive crashed. For those who do not know, the hard drive is the part that contains software programs necessary for using the computer, plus any information that has been saved or written on to its disk. A crash means it does not work; the information usually cannot be retrieved. It is gone forever.
My software is not a problem because we still have the original disks. As for my own data, I had a few hundred documents on that hard drive, including five or six manuscripts for Parables, this semester’s school work, letters, some artwork, and so on. Fortunately, most of it was also saved on portable disks called “floppies.” But, because my habits of backing up daily had lapsed, some things were lost, including at least two essays that must be researched and rewritten before their due dates later this month.
After taking the dead drive to a technician who replaced it with a new one, I spent several hours reloading my software programs.
As for the lost work, I felt something like a marathon runner might feel after 25 miles and the finish line in sight when someone’s dog runs out from the sidelines and bites him on the leg. Or maybe like the mother who brings a fresh load of sun-dried laundry in from the clothesline and one of her children spills a big can of tomato soup in it. A whole week of work — gone.
When I told my husband that I did not feel very enthusiastic about redoing the work, he responded with a simple question, “Why were you doing it in the first place?” His question was just what I needed to pull me out of my gloom.
For one thing, it reminded me I had set definite goals before starting Bible College. Prior to this, my educational ambition was only to achieve good grades and satisfy class requirements. Now, since I am aware that the Lord wants me to be more like Him, I decided it was important to do all the work but the goal would be greater spiritual maturity, not good marks.
Bob’s question also reminded me of a place in Scripture that talks about eternal rewards for the work we do in our Christian lives. It says some actions have potential for making an eternal impact; some have no lasting value. God will test them somehow by fire: “If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.”
God does not need a computer to know how we live, but if He somehow choose to record my whole life on a hard disk, then when the crash comes and my life is over, according to this passage, He does not simply toss the disk (as we will likely do with ours). Instead, He recovers what has been built on “the foundation which is Jesus Christ,” those actions done in faith and in the power of the Lord. He also rewards them in some undefined way. In other words, the good data is recoverable.
On the other hand, any of my life that was corrupted by selfishness and rebellion against Him will be burned; it is not fit for eternity. This includes not only the obvious uglies like hate, anger, lies, and so on but even so called “Christian service” that I did for my own glory and not for God. Because He knows everything about our hearts and motives, He justly evaluates what we do.
Looking back on the “loss” of some data now takes a different perspective. All that God has done during the past two years to change me is recorded on my heart and life where it should be — certainly (and thankfully) not on my hard drive!
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